The Amarillo IPA brew day went well. I purposely mashed in a bit low at 150 degrees to make up for the fact that White Labs Pacific Ale yeast attenuates a bit lower than the Cal Ale yeast I usually use for this brew. I know I say this every time I brew an IPA, but I swear that Amarillo hops are the best smelling hops in the boil. The aroma in my backyard while putting almost eight ounces of Amarillos in the brew was the best I’ve ever smelled:) I usually mash in to Marley, but today I mashed in to Mayer – a new live CD was released yesterday. Good stuff.

My OG was a bit lower than the recipe projected and came in at 1.062. I’m a bit surprised as I’ve been regularly hitting my numbers lately, since I’ve been recirculating longer while mashing out. This should be a fairy dry IPA with the lower mash temperature and the addition of 10 ounces of dextrose.

I got the wort put to bed about 2:15 p.m. and was cleaned up by 3:00. I now have 30 gallons in glass. The wit and the all Centennial IPA are still chugging away and the krausen heads have yet to fall on either brew. Hopefully they finish up pretty soon so that I can get them kegged up. The Two Hearted IPA still needs two weeks of dry hopping. I was hoping to enter this ale into my brew club’s open style competition, but it doesn’t look like it will be ready – and I refuse to put a sub-standard, green beer into a club competition.

Once I was chilling the wort, I had Colona Mexican lager (it’s a clone of Corona – get it? :). It’s not my favorite style of beer by a long shot, but it is quite refreshing when you’ve been working in the heat all day – and it really is a pretty beer to behold:)

Next up on the brew schedule is Jamil Zainasheff’s Evil Twin Red ale. Even though it only comes in at 24 IBUs, all of the hops are added in the last 20 mintes of a 90 minute boil, so you get a pretty intense hop flavor and aroma. I have all the grains weighed out ready to go for this brew on Monday. I just rinsed out my two yeast starter flasks and got a new batch of yeast going! Life is good!